Beautiful Almaty, Kazakhstan

During the last twenty plus years while living in Seattle, I was able to go back to Almaty 3 times and my very last trip to the city was in May 2015. What made this journey so distinct was that this time we have traveled together as a family.

In my honest opinion, Almaty is the most beautiful city in Central Asia and was the very first town that I have traveled to.

In other words I was born in this fabulous city and have lived there until me and my family have immigrated to Seattle in September of 1994.

Some facts about the city of Almaty

Almaty (formerly known as Alma-Ata) is the largest city in Kazakhstan and despite losing its status as the capital to Astana, Almaty remains the major commercial and cultural center of Kazakhstan. The name “Alma-Ata” is derived from two Kazakh words “Alma” which translates as apple and “Ata” which translates as father, so together it means “father of apples“.

Almaty was founded in 1854 as Russian frontier fort called Verny. Many Chinese, Cossacks and Siberian peasants started to settle around the fort. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was a place of exile and the most famous outcast was Leon Trotsky. In 1927, Almaty became the capital of Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. In 1991 Almaty was the place for the meeting at which the USSR was finally pronounced dead, when all five Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union together with Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova, Russian, Ukraine and Belarus joined the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States). Almaty lost its status as capital of Kazakhstan in 1998.

Almaty is loaded with extremely friendly people (which are much more friendlier that people in some other Republics of the former Soviet Union), beautiful parks, dozens of world class shopping malls. thousands of restaurants, cafes and public markets (bazaars) and many many other kinds of places where tourists can fulfill their entertainment thirsts.

The uniqueness of Almaty is that the city is situated in the foothills of the Zailiysky Alatau which is part of the Northern Tian Shan mountain system in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Combination of mountains and tall buildings creates impressive and breathtaking sight and forms an unbelievable skyline of the city.

Some views of Almaty skyline

I can boast about Almaty skyline all day long but enough about that and let me tell you more about our trip and the places we have visited.

Before this recent trip, my previous visit to Almaty was accomplished in 2004 and honestly not much changed since.

Here are the changes that I have certainly observed since my last journey 11 years ago

More tall buildings, more cars, more traffic jams, more churches, more mosques, couple of new freeways, and the biggest newbie structure was…

THE UNDERGROUND SUBWAY SYSTEM – ALMATY METRO

Construction of the Almaty Metro began in September 1988 when Kazakhstan was still part of the Soviet Union. However, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, funds from Moscow dried u and the new Kazakhstani government was unable to continue construction. In 2003, the government of Kazakhstan laid out a new development initiative which included government funds for continued construction on the metro and by 2005 the project has restarted. The first section of the Metro opened in December 2011 with initially five stations and one more section with two stations was added to the system in April 2015.